Monday, May 05, 2008

Plain Song

The history of the song from whence comes this partial verse can be found here.

These lines individually demonstrate, imho, the advice on paragraphs proffered recently by ever-acute edittorrent -- that is, one should strive to end paragraphs with (1) a word which indicates contrast, conflict or tension ( broken); (2) a word which creates a concrete image ( bird); or, (3) a word of perennial evocative power ( the hills.)

I was particularly pleased to see the last suggestion.

Too often, writers are chivied into thinking they must replace/avoid plain, solid words with deviant synonyms.

25 comments:

I love that song--and thank goodness I do, because it will be playing in my head all day long now! I agree about the synonym use; I get tired of reading sixteen different versions of "run" or "said" in a book.

strong, straightforward nouns and verbs are usually more powerful than the cheap synonym or the $2 substitute. the same thing goes for "said" vs. "exclaimed," "stated," etc. the dialog itself should have enough drama to carry the day.

can i steal your trollish thoughts? i wish i had thought of them myself. especially about good in everyone.

Feel free, Book. They aren't "mine" - from one of those perennial joke e-mails.Here's another for you.Use it well."The sole purpose of a child's middle name is so he can tell when he's really in trouble."